Big Island County offers free summer meals for keiki at selected sites

Thirteen Hawaii County Parks and Recreation sites will serve free summer meals for keiki 18 and younger Monday through Friday from June 8 through July 17, but the coverage is uneven across the island. The county says the meals will be available at Kawānanakoa Gym, Panaewa Gym, Puueo Community Center, Hilo Armory, Andrews Gym, Gilbert Carvalho Park, Waiākea Uka Gym, Pāpaikou Gym, William “Billy” Kenoi District Park, Keaau Armory, Richardson Ocean Center, Kekuaokalani Gym and Hale Hālāwai Community Center.

The county program is tied to Summer Fun sites, but children do not have to be enrolled in Summer Fun to eat. Families can still get meals by calling the facility by 8 a.m. each day to place an order, a step that may be difficult for working parents, caregivers without reliable phone access or families who cannot check in early every morning. The county also said meals will not be served on excursion days.

The biggest limitation is geography. The participating sites are concentrated in Hilo, Pāpaikou, Keaau and Kailua-Kona, leaving families in more remote parts of Hawaii County with fewer practical options unless they can drive to one of the selected locations. The county said no vendors submitted bids to provide meals at the other nine Summer Fun Program sites, which is why the list narrowed to 13 sites instead of covering the full summer recreation network.

Two holiday closures will interrupt the schedule: the sites will be closed on Kamehameha Day, June 11, and again on July 3. For families trying to stretch grocery budgets through the school break, those gaps matter. Even a free meal program loses some of its value if it is only open on weekdays, skips excursion days and depends on a same-morning call-in system.

The county effort is one piece of a broader summer nutrition patchwork on Hawaii Island. The Hawaii Department of Education is also offering meals at many schools in Hawaii County, and USDA says free on-site summer meals are available to kids 18 and under with no application needed. The Hawaii Department of Human Services has also relaunched SUN Bucks for Summer 2026, giving qualifying households $189 per child for groceries; the program opened for online applications on May 26 and is expected to help more than 90,000 school-aged children statewide. With more than 200 summer food locations across Hawaii, the state is trying to bridge the gap school meals leave behind, but access still depends on where families live, how they travel and whether they can get to the right site at the right time.